Crisis Communication Tips for Video and Film

With the onslaught of COVID-19 in 2020, every business owner suddenly needed to become proficient in crisis communication. And this certainly includes communicating via video and film. Here are our film and video crisis communication tips to help you better engage with your audience during challenging times.

The rationale for using film as part of your marketing strategy is well established. 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool according to Hubspot, who also say that 72% of customers would rather learn about a product of service by way of film. Cisco predict that by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of consumer internet traffic. YouTube is the world’s second biggest search engine and it is owned by the biggest. Google loves film.

It is obvious that businesses should be using video, especially in exceptional circumstances. Recently that was COVID-19, before that it was the global financial crisis. But of course, crises can and will occur again and again into the future. And understanding how to best communicate in a crisis will always be important.

Video and Film Crisis Communication Tips

When it comes to video and film crisis communication tips, the challenge is how to achieve that good communication in difficult times without creating a negative impression around your brand. Be that from poor production values, a lack of confidence in front of the camera, or even knowing what videos to make.

As a business owner in times of challenge, you’ll be dealing with many things coming to you at once. You need to be able to nut down to what is vital, focus on that and communicate that message to your audience. The most sensible approach is usually to create a film strategy. This will let you detail why you are using it, what you hope to achieve, where the film sits on the customer journey to ensure you are showing the right film at the right time and lastly, a clearly defined return on investment. Most importantly, it will let you nail down how this piece of content will communicate your message and cut through the chaos that comes from crisis.

Sometimes you’ll be in need of some quick wins, maybe seeing social as a good avenue. Do you have any existing footage? Can these assets be repurposed in any way? If you don’t, all is not lost. There are plenty of stock sites online where you can license footage, soundtracks, sound effects and so on to combine with your existing assets, or even create films from scratch that can help you communicate well.

Product Videos

When you’re in a time of crisis, it’s sometimes difficult to keep your marketing going, or to feel like its appropriate to market in the environment. Our first crisis communication tip is to ensure you’re following business as usual as much as you can, including your product videos, even if you have to make adjustments to how you would usually shoot them.

In this film for a Brisbane chocolatier, we arranged for a sample of chocolates to be couriered over, shot them in a makeshift studio (my 11 year old son’s bedroom), then combined with stock footage, titling and a soundtrack for a powerful, cost-effective product film. To maximise the footage, it was shot in such a way that the whole film can be reformatted to a square aspect ratio for certain social channels, or single chocolates can be highlighted in their own indulgent individual films. I think the 11 year old ate the chocolates for ‘studio rental fees’.

Services Videos

Another problem during a crisis is having the available resources to focus on video and film communication production. And unlike products, with service videos (which should also be continued to be made as business as usual) you can’t stick a box of products on a bike and send them to the nearest seventh grader’s bedroom. The obvious solution (and our next crisis communication tip) is to film yourself. But in the absence of a load of professional kit, you might worry about the production values detracting from your brand. That is before you think about crafting the message effectively and in a way that will work on film.

Motivational Maps provide quick and cost-effective understanding of the levels of motivation in individuals, teams and an organisation as a whole. They identify which of nine different motivators are important to an individual, so they can be leveraged to utilise their full potential. Using stock footage and soundtracks entirely, we created an overall brand film that introduced the motivators, coupled with additional films for the individual motivators. These could be used in a wide variety of applications, from social engagement to results presentations. More importantly, they’re a fantastic way to communicate via video during a crisis when resources might be stretched.

Learn more about Motivational Maps.

Even if a piece to camera is the most appropriate way to convey your message simply and cost-effectively, but for whatever reason practically everything is out of your control?

Referoo is an online reference checking system, used by recruitment consultants and HR professionals. They approached us with a series of client testimonials that they had already gathered as screen recordings. At this level of the journey, there is a level of authenticity that can be conveyed from using footage captured in this format, which can help compensate for the lack of a more polished shoot.

We brought some consistency to the testimonials by concentrating on what was being said rather than what it looked like. Acknowledging the fact that much content is consumed on mobile where people are more inclined to listen without sound, we concentrated on subtitling and creating a professional, clean look that could continue to be rolled out in future. Subtle animated titles help reinforce this.

Learn more about Referoo.

Conclusion

Of course, even without your own footage, these crisis communication tips still require you to understand, craft and tell a story in an engaging manner that will resonate with your target audience and, crucially, align with your business objectives. You may not know what your story is but everyone has one and this is where we can help.

During challenging times, audiences won’t stop consuming film and search engines won’t stop indexing them. If anything, in unprecedented times, it becomes more crucial for a business to provide their audience information in the format that they want to view it. Some creative thinking can overcome many of the obstacles that a business faces in creating content.

To find out more about how we can help you with video or film crisis communication, get in contact today.